That’s how Clark Preparatory Coach Marcell Fisher characterizes the accelerated brand of basketball that has defined his Bulldogs during a run to 17 victories, a District 10-3A championship and the program’s first state playoff appearance in three years.

“We like to play fast. We want to play up tempo because of our size,’’ said Fisher, a Syracuse, N.Y., native in third season as Bulldogs coach. “We like to play what I call organized confusion.’’

The bewildering Bulldogs entered the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s Class 3A championship bracket as the final entry into the field of 32 that is tipping off pursuit of a berth in the Top 28 Boys Basketball Tournament scheduled for March 11-15 at Burton Coliseum in Lake Charles.

Clark (17-12) faces a monumental challenge in opening the postseason against top-seeded Curtis (19-5) at 6 p.m. Friday at the Patriots gym in River Ridge. The winner advances to next week’s regional round to face the winner between No. 16 Union Parish and No. 17 North Webster.

The Bulldogs are riding a nine-game winning streak, having swept through eight district opponents to capture what Fisher has been told by Clark alumni to be the school’s first district championship since 1986.

More solidly defined is that the fact that it has been seven weeks since the Bulldogs last tasted defeat dating to a 52-46 loss to M.L. King Charter on Jan. 10.

“I told (the players) three years ago that we’d be in this position if we worked hard and were dedicated,’’ Fisher said. “So I think we’re right where we need to be. The way we feel is we don’t want our season to be over.’’

Clark players echo their coach’s sentiments.

“We’ve been striving for greatness for two years,’’ said junior guard Staven Green, Clark’s second leading scorer at 14.7 points per game. “I just think it’s our time to show everyone. We’re trying to put Clark back on the map.’’

Starting three years ago when Fisher arrived as part of a new charter school administration founded by First Line Schools, Bulldogs basketball has proven to be one of this Treme neighborhood school’s shining lights.

The Bulldogs have won 17 games in each of Fisher’s three seasons, opening with a 17-11 record in 2011-12 and following that with a 17-12 mark last season, which Fisher said would have produced a state playoff berth if not for the late discovery of two attendance zone ineligible players that resulted in nine forfeits.

This season’s squad actually finished 39th in the LHSAA’s final power ratings, but as a district champion advanced to the playoffs as an automatic qualifier.

All five starters and the top four reserves return from a year ago when the Bulldogs competed in District 10-2A along side Curtis and Riverside.

Eight of those nine players are guards and only two are seniors, lending strong credence to the belief that the best is yet to come for the Bulldogs.

Although Davis stands 6-feet-5 and Jenkins and Biagas each are 6-feet-3, the height drops off precipitously thereafter with Green the point guard and Jackson both measuring 5-11.

The four remaining guards in the rotation, all juniors, are Desean Rice (6-2), Andrew Martin (6-0), Darryl Bloomfield (5-10) and point guard Tony Watkins (5-9).

Four Bulldogs average in double figures with Jenkins serving as the catalyst at 23 points a game followed by Green’s 14.7, Jackson’s 13.8 and Biagas’ 10.0.

Defensively, true to Fisher’s upstate New York roots, the Bulldogs generally match up in a 2-3 zone modeled after the one made famous by Syracuse and Coach Jim Boeheim, with pressure serving as a predominant theme.

“We really don’t trap out of it,” said the 44-year-old Fisher, whose 16 years of coaching experience has been spent chiefly at the collegiate level at stops such as Binghamton University, Bethune-Cookman and Elizabeth City State University. “We try to force people to take long shots, then rebound and get out and run.’’

But more than schemes, Fisher said, “I’ve tried to bring a basketball culture here. I felt like if I could do that, that we could do something special here.’’

In addition to having competed in the same district against Curtis during the previous two seasons, Clark is preparing to face the Patriots for a second time this season.

The Bulldogs played the future District 11-3A champions to a nine-point game in late November as part of the Lusher Tournament. The 59-50 defeat, in which Curtis was missing its core group of football players that make up much of the lineup, marked the second of seven consecutive losses sustained by the Bulldogs before embarking on their current 14-5 run.

“We started playing as a team,’’ Jenkins said of the lessons learned from that seven-game losing streak. “Before that we were playing as individuals. We’ve built up our chemistry. We’ve built up our mental toughness. Ever since then we’ve been playing Bulldogs basketball.’’

Schematically that relates to Fisher’s “organized confusion.’’

“We want to let our guards get out and run,” Fisher said. “We’ve got a unique situation with our guards being able to shoot the ball and get to the basket.

“Because we play that way we get more shots and we score more points. And the last few games we’ve been scoring in the 60s and 70s. Our goal is try to score 20 points a quarter.’’

Bulldogs basketball has averaged 74.7 points during its current nine-game winning streak while allowing 48.1.

“The reason we lost was we were weak-minded,’’ Jenkins said. “When we got down to the stretch, we’d give up. But now it’s all Bulldogs basketball.’’

“I can see the improvement in our team through the long hours we’ve spent in the gym,’’ Davis said. “The thing I like is that even after going 0-for-7 that we never quit on each other. We never gave up. We’ve been having fun playing together.’’

“Bulldogs basketball is about being competitive,’’ Green said. “We won’t give up against any challenge that anybody gives us. We’ll go for it.’’

“I think Bulldogs basketball is being tough, having fun on offense and being tenacious on defense,’’ Davis added.

“To me, I feel like it’s all about our will to win,’’ Jenkins said. “We don’t back down from nobody. We can play with any team in the city. It’s about toughness. That’s Bulldogs basketball.’’

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Mike Strom can be reached at Mstrom@nola.comor 504.826.3405. Follow him at twitter.com/TheMikeStrom.